


The Bat Legacy

by Revival_Push



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics), Justice League - All Media Types, Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Families of Choice, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2019-03-15 19:34:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13620237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Revival_Push/pseuds/Revival_Push
Summary: Death, destruction and violence. Commissioner Gordon knew exactly what Batman was about, but this time he's gone too far. Robin was just a child. And now he was dead. This is the legacy he left behind, and Gordon will do anything to end it.





	The Bat Legacy

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing.

_Wandering creatures are less often seen twice..._

 

It was sweltering. Not just some muggy summer evening in the city, but a real kind of just-opened-the-oven heat that carried the crime waves with it. Violence always goes up in the summer, be it in Gotham or elsewhere. It's just the way it was. Arsonists included. 

Commissioner James Gordon shielded his eyes from the still-glaring sun as two dark figured swooped pass him from overhead. He shook his head. It was too late in the day for the sky to be this offensive and too early for him to have to deal with masked vigilantes. And now he had to deal with both  _and_ a residential apartment complex half on fire. If he was being honest part of his frustration was the feeling of being totally useless while heavily covered firemen raced past him. There wasn't much he could do at the moment so he took in an eyeful of the more dangerous attractions the city had to offer. It wasn't too often anyone really got a good look at them and Gordon almost wished he hadn't. He didn't much care for what he saw. Night added to the allusion. The visage. Here, in the light of day, Gordon could see Robin was below average height, and not layered with the thickly coiled muscles Batman possessed. Gordon measured a cut of a cheek bone through the black cowl, a stream of sweat running against the corner of his jaw. Batman towered over the kid. He'd probably tower over Gordon too, if he came close enough.

In the dark they were secretly human. Possibly. But it was in the light that they became a little too real. Real, and oddly misplaced. There was certainly no need for invoking fear for this task. No one could scare a fire away. Not even Batman. The duo started helping with in-building evacuations, and Gordon knew they going in where even the firemen could not get to.

It was dangerous work but in the end they came out with burns across their arms and ash smeared so thickly against their skin that the true pigment was indiscernible.

But they were alive and Gordon begrudgingly made his way over to say _thanks, now beat it before I arrest you_.

And that's the moment an opportunists took advantage of the provided opening with a potshot Gordon would have ringing in his ears for months.

It was so close and so sudden Gordon had whipped around on instinct with his gun raised before he truly realized what had even happened. Gordon's men neutralized the assailant almost immediately, five shots to the chest, and over so quick Gordon didn't get a single shot off.

 _Shit_. 

Gordon whipped around, almost expecting the pair to have dashed off unscathed as they had seemed to so often. They weren't. Batman was hunched over, but not over a wound. Over the wounded.

The boy wasn't moving. There was a lot of blood.

 _Artery_ , Gordon thought.  _He hit an artery_.

The next instant Batman was gone, Boy Wonder cradled in him arms like the fucking child he was.

A week later Batman was back on patrol.

Robin wasn't with him. 

**One year later…**

Commissioner James Gordon slumped over his desk, one large hand twisted in his white hair and the other gripping a pencil hard enough to snap it into halves.

Two-Face had managed to con his was out of the Asylum three days ago, he had four murder cases on his hands that were starting to look a lot like the same psychos handiwork, and his shoulders were so stiff he could barely get his arms over his head.

It'd been a rough week.

Gordon gave an involuntary shiver.  _And the damn AC still going off on it's own._  The Commissioner rose stiffly to his feet and made his way to the temperature control stuck to the side of the wall.

"I think we need to talk about a problem we're having, Commissioner."

Gordon scrambled for his firearm as he tried to lock in on the spectral figure melded into the shadows of his office, "Move and I shoot!"

"You've already tried." There was no humor in his graveled voice, "Which is part of the problem."

It had been a near thing, too. Gordon swore the bullet at least caught somewhere in the man's heavy cape. 

"You're the only problem I see, Batman. Come into the light before I open fire."

Batman hesitated for a moment before stirring, "Alright." With a soundless glide he detached from the dark shade of the walls. Behind him a soft breath exhaled from the nearly invisible black of the wall. Batman did not take his eyes off Gordon.

Gordon tightened his grip. "Who's with you, Batman? I'd have thought you'd rather work alone after you got that boy killed."

With the air of hesitance, a smaller figure peeled out from the darkness.

Robin _._

But not, not the kid he first saw all those years ago. The kid Gordon had been half in awe of and completely afraid for. The kid who had won him over and become a presence Gordon failed to question, failed to fight. 

" _I've never seen anyone move like that, Batman, not even you."_

" _I know. He's… gifted."_

" _And a child. This isn't right. How old is he? Twelve? Thirteen?"_

But he never answered the question.

" _There won't be a way to stop him, Jim. I am Batman. He is Robin. I do what I do because I must. He isn't any different."_

" _He's a boy."_

" _And for that reason, one day he will be more than I am now."_

" _I hope you know what you're doing."_

_A small grin. "Not even close."_

He'd been so small then. Smaller even than the red and black figure that stood silently before him now. Gordon didn't lower his gun.

"You can't do this." His voice was dull to his ears, "Not again."

The man suddenly turned back against the back wall, melted away again. "There's nothing else to be done. I am not here to discuss Robin. I want to know you're on the level with me."

Gordon wasn't listening. His eyes narrowed against the darkness of the room, trailing for a hint of shape. 

"Is that what you do Batman? Lose one kid and then replace him like he was a damned tool? A boy is dead because of you."  _And he would never be complicit in the death of a child again._

"I don't recall pulling the trigger." The voice carried from the left. Gordon almost started.

"We both know you put him in harm's way. He was a good kid, and now he's dead."

"You don't know anything about him."

"Screw that, I know enough."

"What you saw was a crazy reckless kid."

"He was a  _child_." _you in_ _human bastard._

"Robin made his choice a long time ago. His decision, not mine."

 _You're_ Batman _for God's sake! You've taken down people who have more in common with the devil!_

Gordon's eyes caught a glint of _something_ that appeared to be head-shaped. "You could have stopped him." The charcoal barrel head leveled with his cowled forehead. 

"Could I? Or would he have just run off on his own? He had a lot of natural talent and a thirst for revenge. Sounds like the short life of a murderer I would have put behind bars."

_Liar._

"But-"

"He was a good kid?"

Gordon's voice grew quiet, "Not any more, now is he?"

"No, I guess he isn't a child anymore. Not in that sense." His tone was pointed and he spoke slowly, annunciating each word to the point of patronizing, "All children leave home eventually Commissioner. You know that."

"Leave–  _Leave_   _home_?"

Gordon pulled the trigger with a shaking rage that made his fingers burn. The gun clicked.

Untouched, Batman slowly made his way to the open window, the boy a step behind him. "I took the liberty of relieving your firearm of it's clip."

_Criminal._

"You son of a bitch! I know what I saw! The boy got shot and it was your fault! If you hadn't brought him into all this, he'd be alive!"

He motioned for the boy – _Robin_ – to step on to the waiting ledge.

"This isn't over Batman." He promised, but it was too late. Jim Gordon was years too late.

Years too late to save Robin.

***

_Visitors like that are a mere moment away from becoming boring intruders._

 

**Two years later…**

Jim Gordon buried his hands in his snowy hair. If he kept this up he'd harass every last strand out of his head. He'd been going over the same case for hours now, obsessively looking over the facts and waiting for a shocking revelation to pop up from the pages.

_I'm missing something._

He tilted his neck to one side with a small pop. He was tired. He should just let it go. Get some sleep.  _Relax._

And he should. But he couldn't now, not when he felt he had something to prove.

" _This isn't over Batman."_

He wanted to show that son of a bitch that Gotham didn't  _need_  a psycho child-killer to protect it's streets. He wanted to justify taking him down.

Gordon shifted irritably. It was getting cold again.

"Long day?" A quiet voice inquired.

The Commissioner jumped at the sudden sound and made for his gun.

"Hey now." The voice cautioned. And then  _he_  stepped out of the shadows. The new boy. The new  _Robin_.

Gordon sighed. He would be lying if he said he hadn't tried to find himself disliking this new Robin, but that was mainly because he wasn't the original –his Robin, the boy he had watch grow up. Now, here in his dim office, he could be honest with himself. Or at least he could try.

Besides, as always, Robin  _was_  a good kid. The boy reminded him a lot of the old one, enough so that he could sometimes pretend it was the same one all along.

A past time where he was young and breathing and laughing.

A time where he called Batman 'friend' and laughed when the grim mouth under the cowl would upturn slightly at the corners from his protege's childish antics.

Gordon sat back down, "What can I do for you, kid?"

The boy shifted a little, probably very aware that he was speaking with the man who had taken a shot at his mentor only a few months ago.

"Batman is going to be out of town for a while."

Gordon took that in. Batman may have gotten his previous protege killed, but that hadn't been intentional. Not really. But this- this wasn't good. He knew what Robins did when they were on their own.

And this one was a lot younger than the last one was when he left him on his own for a time.

"He's leaving you here." Gordon summed, "To patrol."

The kid nodded.

"Without him." The crazies would have a field day when they got wind they would be without the Bat, and as much as he hated to admit it, the man had been one of the only things keeping those freaks in line.

No reason to lie to yourself. "He's needed, you know. I don't like it, but it is what it is. Gotham needs a Batman."  _For now._

The boy smiled a little. Maybe a little sad or bitter in the act, but a very Robin-like smile all the same. Just not quite as crazy as the last boy. "But not a Robin?"

Ah. That. "Look, I like you Robin –"

"Let me guess, 'I'm a good kid.'?"

_That murdering bastard._

"Yeah Robin, you are. So was the last one. And the next one probably will be too. That's the problem here. What the hell is a kid doing running around at night like this?" Gordon gestured towards Robin's black and red attire, all the way from his feather light boots to his black domino mask. "And now he's leaving you here." Gordon shook his head," You're going to get killed you know."

At least he wasn't quite as reckless as the other one. More reserved. Methodical.

_But dead is dead, and the last one was great. And now he's gone._

"I'm not alone."

"You said he was leaving," Gordon winced, "and a month is a long time here."

"I know that. So does he. A… friend, I guess, is moving in for a bit. I'll work for him until –"

"A 'friend'?" Gordon felt his blood pressure rising.

"Well, not a friend, then. I mean… it's complicated? But we trust him."

Once, he would have liked to see a Bat member get flustered, just to witness that it was possible. With the first one, it never would have happened. It wasn't so much fun now. "Not a friend?"

The boy shrugged. "He's one of the good guys. I cant really say anything. Sorry."

"I don't like this." He folded his large hands in front of him, "You need to get out while you can, kid."

The boy gave a soft, closed-mouth smile. "He told me you would say that."

"Batman  _knows_  how I feel about all of this."

_I'll kill him myself._

"Not Batman."

_Anything to keep this kid from dying._

"Then who?"

_Anything._

The smile widened like he was telling a joke. " _Nightwing_."

***

_'Blackbird' is just a pretty way of saying 'crow'_

 

Gordon yawned lightly and shut his office door behind him. The last couple months hadn't been too bad seeing as he'd been anticipating total mayhem, but it'd still been a rough ten weeks. Couldn't ever be too careful.

Gordon locked the door behind him with a pressed 'click'.

"This thing looks like you haven't touched it in years." Gordon froze. He couldn't even hear the other man breathing. 

"Show yourself!" Gordon whipped out his gun and flicked on the light from a crouched position against the door frame. He felt like he'd been doing dances like this a lot lately and wasn't really sure any man-made lock would ever make a difference in the pattern. He really, really needed to move his office. 

Or maybe he should board up the windows and make these lunatics use the door or a phone just like everyone else.

A man clothed in all black was sitting in the arm chair facing his desk, hunched over Jim's old chess set. A faint clicking noise came from the back of his throat as he maneuvered one of the black pieces forwards. He leaned back and turned to Gordon expectantly, "Your move."

From this new angle Gordon could see a strip of blue across the man's chest. A bird. "Nightwing." He lowered the gun an inch. "The kid said you were coming. Didn't mention anything about any office visits though."

The man reached a casual hand up to his already messy hair and gave a small smile, "I know, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity. Tomorrow's my last night."

Gordon took a small step forward and shifted his weight against the wall, gun hanging in a seemingly lazy grip at his side. "Then what? Bats comes around again and you head back to…"

"Bludhaven." He supplied. There was some amusement in his voice and mirthful expression to his lips. It should have annoyed Gordon, make him weary and angry.

But it didn't.

Feeling a little numb he tucked the gun back into its holster and made an uncoordinated trek to his swivel chair, the man's masked eyes following his movements.

"That's a rough city."

They sat there for a moment, neither looking away.

He shrugged, "Your move, Commish."

Gordon broke his gaze and looked down at the board blankly. Robin and him used to play on it back in the days when the one on one seemed to make the boy a bit nervous. One day he just took down the set from his book shelf and set it in between them.

_He felt the kid's gaze on him, eyes moving behind the mask and his head staying stock-still in that odd, disconcerting manner that resembled the Batman's almost perfectly._

" _You know how to play?" He asked when he finally got the thing down. Bab's and him use to play some, back when she was just starting high school and would come down to his office after school would let out._

" _Yeah," the boy replied, "Batman said chess is in everything we do. The strategy, you know?" Robin gave a small grin, "He taught me."_

_Gordon hid a smile threatening to pop up on his mouth. Robin was a quiet kid. Never seemed to say a damned thing. It was to his hear his voice. It was more raw than he thought it would be and with weird inflections. Not foreign and not exactly an accent. Just different. Unusual._

" _Good. Take a seat and we'll discuss the case while we play then."_

_Robin crossed the room with more grace than any scrawny kid had a right to. Gordon wondered how old he was. Robin had popped up maybe a year and a half ago. He figured Batman took on the boy when he was about thirteen or so, making him a little over fourteen now. Maybe._

_Robin sure didn't_ look _fourteen, but anything younger was ridiculous. Absurd. Everything about the situation was absurd. Some crazy kid running around with the goddamn Dark Knight with a domino mask plastered on his face. Maybe going to school during the day and crushing over girls and worrying over grades._

Ridiculous.

_Gordon tried not to think about it a lot._

" _Alright," He set up the board and nudged a pawn forwards, "your move, kid."_

_The boy smirked a little in a way that for the world reminded Gordon of the worse trouble-making kid he'd ever encountered and then some on top of that._

_Robin made his move._

_Gordon sat back, "So, tell me what you two are thinking about all this…"_

Gordon stared at the board now, a man across from him, no longer a boy. A coating of dust covered the board, a single clean circle on it where Nightwing's piece had previously sat.

"It's been a while," Gordon said finally, "A long while."

"I know, but superhero-ing is  _a lot_  of work, and business is  _always_  good." There was something off in his tone. Lightness and strain all at once.

"Funny," Gordon made his move without studying the board, "you see, I thought you were busy being dead."

Nightwing exhaled sharply and nudged another piece into play, "Yeah, Robin mentioned something like that."

Gordon started a little at the name.  _Robin._  He wondered it made him– made  _Nightwing_ – angry to be replaced by another. Another Robin.

"I saw you get shot, kid." Nightwing leaned back for what he assumed to be preparation for a long explanation. Gordon took the opportunity to get a real look at the man now. Not very tall, but he was always a small kid. A very small kid, for his age or otherwise, really. He was well muscled though, but not bulky like Batman. Lean. He grew is hair out more, past his ears, but it was still so black it was almost tinged blue even in the pathetically dim light of his office. He saved the masked face for last. The final proof it was  _really_  him, alive and breathing, and  _here_.

It was angular like he remembered, with a straight nose and the lightest of indents in his chin, as if someone pressed their finger to it and it had left a mark. The mask was a little bizarre, hooking around his eyes with a scrawled look to its edges. Between the stark contrast of his night-paled skin and the blue-black of his mask, Gordon could make out the edges of a fading purple bruise ringing around his eye and brushing against the top of his cheek bone.

He looked tired. Tired, but good.  _Alive._

He wondered how old that made him now. If he was thirteen as Gordon guessed when he first started and had served as Boy Wonder for about a decade, that'd have made him twenty-three or so when he was shot. It'd been two years since then. Twenty-five.

_Twenty-five._

It didn't sound so bad now. Twenty-five was a man's age, albeit a young man. When Gordon was twenty-five he was just getting engaged to his wife and was already of the force, risking his life. Not entirely unlike Nightwing was now.

An acceptable age, but not his decision to say so.

Nightwing waited for Gordon to finish his physical evaluation. Gordon sighed and pushed a second piece forwards on the board, "Alright kid, tell me what the hell happened."

***

_What doesn't change?_

_What does?_

 

"We started arguing. A lot." Nightwing examined the board for a moment before reaching for a piece, the corner of his mouth pulled up a little lopsided. Gordon knew that if he pulled it back a little more it would match the crazed grin of a boy from long ago. "I didn't like the decisions he was making anymore."

And Gordon could remember nights, nights of violence and blood...

" _No! Nonono! Let me up!" Robin bucked against the Batman, throwing his weight up and thrashing to all sides. "I have to help him!"_

"Not that he was making bad ones. I just felt the guilt on me for decisions  _he_  was making."

" _Robin, stay down!" Batman dug his forearm into the kids collar bone._

_Gordon should stop this. Something was off._

"And I didn't like it. I snapped."

_The boy was trapped. Trapped, and that man was falling falling falling. Gordon could almost feel the screams running through the kid, in him and becoming Robin in some place he did not know. Did not want to know._

_He could draw out his gun. Say_ enough _and demand the boy be let go. But there he was thrashing, Batman the stoic and him wild and cursing._

_Gordon had never heard Robin curse before._

" _No! Let me help him!" But he was pinned. "You son of a bitch!" Robin threw back an elbow into his mentor's throat and squirm out from under his chest. Batman let out a choked gasp but managed to grasp the back of Robin's collar, right where his black cape began._

_Robin let out a hoarse shout and whirled around in a roundhouse that Batman deflected at the last moment, his hand whipping away from the force with a sickening crack._

"It was time for me to leave."

" _ENOUGH." He commanded harshly, and with his good hand he threw the back of Robin's head into the hard cement of the roof top and repeated the action again when the boy latched his ankles around the back of Batman's knee and pulled the man towards him. Batman stumbled forwards until almost all his weight was leaned over the boy. Robin didn't rise again._

"I needed to make my own choices."

_Gordon watched as Batman let a gloved hand ghost over the boy's throat before skimming the back of his head. The glove came away clean; no blood in sight. He sighed and picked Robin up, gentle in a very un-Batman like manner._

_From the shadows Gordon looked on with a mute sort of shock. Never before had he seen Batman strike his protégé, and after that he hoped to God he never would again._

_Three weeks and a single shot later, and he knew he never would._

_He couldn't decide which was worse._

Nightwing tilted his head up, giving the impression of eye contact. Maybe from his perspective he was.

Gordon locked his eyes on the centers of the white field of the mask, "He beat you. It saw it, kid, so don't go about denying it."

Nightwing shrugged, "That one time. And if you got to see what else was going on, you probably would have helped him."

"He hit you before that." Gordon said it like he knew it was true.

Nightwing shrugged again. Gordon clenched his jaw. "I thought he was going to kill you." His voice cracked oddly, his mouth twisting as if being restrained painfully.

Nightwing shook his head slowly, dropping his gaze to the board, "He saved my life," he said simply.

Gordon followed his gaze and pretended to study the set, "He stopped you from helping that man."

"That man was already dead, Commish." He eyed the board and tilted his chin pointedly, "I just didn't want to see it for what it was."

Gordon wondered why he was even pretending here. The kid had him beat half a dozen times since the game started. He was just drawing all this out. Gordon wasn't even paying attention.

"Fine. So you weren't getting along." He nudged a piece forwards and shivered with goosebumps. It always seemed freezing in hi _s_ office lately, "I saw you get shot."

Now the grin was back for real, child-like tug at his lips and in his tone, "I've seen you get shot too. And poisoned, and hit by a car –twice– and mauled by the Man-Bat, and strangled by a  _purple_   _weed_ and–"

"Nightwing."

Gordon froze.

Nightwing's smile didn't waver. Gordon almost didn't like how young he looked when he smiled like that.

"Bats." He grinned, "You're back early."

 _Batman._ Gordon eyed the shadows until the cloaked figure materialized out from nothing.

"Something you something you seemed to have been aware of long before I did."

"What?" The smile turned from fond to teasing.

"You're all packed and saying good byes." His tone was noninflected, "Sounds like you were planning for an early take off."

The smile dropped. "I just had a hunch. Someone once told me to trust those."

"Good advice."

Nightwing stood up, "Believe me, I  _know_." He interlocked his long fingers and stretched his arms above his head, "I guess I should take off then –"

"Stay."

Nightwing paused mid stride.

"At least for tonight. Stay." The words were a command, but the tone left him the chance to refuse. He didn't.

He dropped his arms, "Okay." Nightwing said slowly, "I'll just leave in the morning then."

Batman nodded, looking as if he wanted to say something else. Instead he turned towards Gordon, "Commissioner," he acknowledged before disappearing into the darkness outside the window, not once letting his back be turned towards Gordon.

" _This isn't over Batman."_

Gordon swallowed when he was gone. "He never told me you were alive," he said softly, "I blamed him for your death."

Nightwing looked at him oddly, "That's because he blamed himself. I didn't die, but I really could have."

"Was it his fault?"

Nightwing looked out the opened window, the white gaze of his mask far away from the office. The office lighting Gordon could see a raised scar running into his hairline from the back of his ear, not quite covered by the inky hair falling nearly to his chin. "No," he said slowly, "but if he hadn't...God knows what I would have done. Maybe he would have felt that was on him too." He moved with a soundless grace to the open frame, blending into the dark like ink into oil. "Good game Commish."

Gordon stared. "Nightwing." The silence drew long enough Gordon thought he was gone.

"Yeah?"

Gordon swallowed thickly, "Tell him– You tell him that this changes nothing."

Nightwing didn't respond.

Gordon sat in front of the unfinished chess game for hours. Nightwing could have beaten him.  _Should_  have. But here it was, not over yet.

_Anything to keep this kid from dying._

_Anything._

_***_

_Turning points are rarely more than a gentle pivot...After all, are we not now what we once were?_

 

**Three years later...**

Jim Gordon swore the cry woke him from his sleep. Long and lingering, it filled the air with a hallow breeze and a sudden freeze of the air. It didn't sound human or animal or mechanic. It just sounded like loss and wreck and force.

And then it was gone, taking what he assumed was the miserable creature making that sound with it.

**Two Weeks Earlier**

This was ridiculous. And he was getting sick of the bullshit. And this was all truly, completely bullshit.

"He was ready to kill me you know, when I brought in this Robin." Gordon typed out a few more words on his keyboard. Sighed.

Dark, brooding, and untouchable, melting into the shadows and gloom.

"Batman, nice to drop by. I haven't tried to shoot you all month." Nightwing might have been hanging around his office too much these days. Gordon was getting this sardonic sarcasm smeared all over him. Maybe dark minded humor was how they all put up with everything. The big secret to success.

The Batman made a light movement behind him.

Then again, maybe not.

He wondered if the bastard had broken the lock getting in. Gordon liked replacing them every so often to see if there ever became a point one of them would have to. But aside from that single time a misplaced Robin was been thrown through one of the frames a few years ago –nothing.

Lately he had been taking interest in the weirdest things. Things like pissing the big man off. Seeing if he could make him mad. Angry. Annoyed.  _Anything_.

Of course, this topic was a little different than what he usually got. He didn't sound nervous per se. But this was difficult for him, maybe. Or at least he didn't want to have this talk. And Gordon really, really liked that, if nothing else.

"I didn't understand why. At first I thought he was disputing my last partner."

Gordon finally spun around in his chair, leaned back with his thick fingers tapping against the armrests, "Last one?"

"Another Robin."

This was all getting annoying.

"After the first?"

"Yes."

Gordon didn't draw his weapon, didn't sneer. No threats, curses. No pointing fingers. No chance to stop this. To stop  _him_.

"I don't remember him."

Gordon can lie too, but Batman swallows it. Though to be fair, at the time he really didn't know. How was _he_ supposed to keep track of all these fucking kids Batman kept getting killed?  "There were rumors, another kid. Years ago, but nothing solid."

A pause.

Batman knew what he was doing.

"So, what happened to him then?"

"The Joker killed him."

"Ah." Gordon leaned back further.  _Disinterest disinterest._

Batman's mouth turned into a thin line. Gordon enjoyed the sick satisfaction he got from Batman knowing _exactly_ what Gordon thought of him. On the other hand, Gordon had a lot of paper work. "Why are you telling me this, Batman?"

Batman turned away. A year and a half ago Gordon might have tried a pot-shot at his back. And he would have missed and definitely not on accident.

This was one hell of a sick game they were playing.

Of course, the Batman holds his own secrets.

"You _are the one that left Dick."_

" _So what? So I'm gone and you just bring in another damn kid?"_

" _He needs this Dick."_

" _You're full of it! He's not some misled youth Bruce! He'll be fine."_

" _Like you would have been fine?"_

" _That –That was different and you know it."_

" _Same as Jason as far as I see. Young. Violent. Angry."_

" _No. Don't you dare-No! It's different. I WAS DIFFERENT."_

"He was different, Jim. I made a mistake, and it's too late to fix it."

Admittance of guilt. Who would have guessed?

"This Robin is still alive you know."

"I am aware."

Gordon bristled a bit. "So?"

"It may be too late."

"Try."

"I am," His voice hushed into a whisper, "I promise you that."

But the kid was already in the game.

And honestly, he wasn't much of a kid any longer. He probably hadn't ever really been in the first place.

It wasn't enough.

And as much as he hated to admit it, this, all of this. The vendetta, the attempts to make  _him_ take action –it was keeping Jim Gordon young and fired up.

In the end, maybe he too was a damned inhuman bastard.

 _But sometimes assuming isn't enough. You have to trust what you know. What you_ feel. _And Jim Gordon felt this in his core. The Batman was gone, and somewhere in the night there was another broken kid._

" _Robin."_

_And then he too became another figure searching out in the dark, trailing whatever horrors Gotham had decided to throw at them tonight._

_***_

_Pacing is a lot less interesting in purgatory_

 

**Three Months Earlier**

"Kid?"

Gordon was worried. The scream had long faded into the dark, a dead silence taking its place like a forever-moment.

"Robin?" Gordon was terrified. James Gordon did not do terrified well.

But then there he was. Both of them. Robin and then the new one, even some other figure decked in a brown leather jacket and red domino mask stood frozen in the street, red helmet at his feet and his mouth slightly gaping.

The boy was on his knees against the asphalt, trembling so violently he might as well have been receiving an electric current running through him. Blood the color of stale ink covered his shoulder. Gordon could see that through the arm Nightwing had wrapped across Robin's face was more blood, lighter looking against the pale of his face than it had on his uniform.

Nightwing was the only one who acknowledged him, and even then it was a brief locking of the eyes that only lasted as long as it took him to hoist the kid into his arms and stand to his full height.

A soft exhalation behind Gordon seemed to awaken the red masked man to the world. He made his way to Nightwing slowly and placed a heavy hand on his shoulder.

"I'm around," he said quietly before sparing Gordon an uncomfortable parting glace as he left.

Red Hood.

_My God…_

But Red Hood didn't do this. Nightwing wouldn't have just been standing there if he had.

"Cave. Now."

Gordon turned slowly. Nightwing hadn't been addressing him, but rather the slim figure standing under the flickering street lamp. And blonde girl who held a single hand across her lips while the other gripped an extend bo staff in a death grip.

"Is he…?"

Nightwing reached into the belt across his waist, "I don't know."

She took out a small black device and pressed it to her mouth while she murmured soft tones into it. 

He didn't watch her fuss with it. A small green light on it started to blink.

And then an instant later and Nightwing was gone, Robin in tow.

Gordon turned to Batgirl.

Not the old one. Not the original who would bicker and flirt with Nightwing in his later days as Robin. Gordon remembered finding that funny. She was obviously older than him and he was so smitten with her...

No, this girl was younger than the woman. Taller, too, and less muscular. 

"Commissioner," she acknowledged briefly.

And then she too was gone.

Gordon gave a light huff and groped the back of his neck tightly. No one ever told him a damned thing. Gordon surveyed the scene one last time before heading back himself. This was bad news. All of it.

**Six Months Later**

Gordon couldn't stop feeling like the city was holding its breath. Waiting for  _him_  when he just  _didn't_ come _._  And wouldn't.

He was dead.

 _Batman_  was dead. Thank God and oh, fuck. 

" _Gotham needs a Batman, Jim."_

And yeah, he had sneered and given dirty looks and even waved his sidearm around a bit, but in the end it was all true.

Gotham  _needed_ a presence of fear counteracting the free for all. Gotham needed a Batman.

And Batman was gone.

Which is why tonight felt like the still before the storm. A storm of violence and bloodshed that would suck Gotham into the Hell she's always been pushed to.

There was that other part too. The apart about a  _man_  being dead. The man behind the mask. The man behind the actions.

Jim had thought them friends once, almost. Or at least on friendly terms.

Batman had saved him before, and more than once at that. He has also saved Barbara when she needed help. Batman had done good things for Gotham, even if Gordon didn't like his methods.

Of course, he had also gotten people killed.  _Children_  killed. A lot of people said all that stuff about Batman never killing, but that wasn't true. People had died because of him. Died at his hands. Usually bad people, but the man wasn't God. It wasn't Batman's decision to make on who lives to see the jailhouse.

Gordon felt there was a lot of things he had to sort through tonight about this. Or had felt, anyways, back in the quiet still of his office before Montoya has peeked in with a blank face and said, "Boss, you're going to want to see this."

Which basically meant that no, no he would definitely not like to or even want to see it, but he had to and would regardless.

So he had made his way from his stiff chair and listened to the music his cracking knees provided for the building. Montoya didn't look particularly concerned or worried, but then again she wasn't one to panic. Gordon once witnessed a bullet land so close to her that her ear bled. She didn't even flinch before sending a round back in response.

No telling what to expect. Some loon running around naked. The whole percent at gun point. A bomb threat. Decent coffee.

Anything.

Even what he found wasn't terribly shocking, which was a pre-pubescent boy outside the building handling a sword like it was the most natural thing in the world. Gordon managed to step outside the exact moment the sword severed the man's left hand from his arm. The scream the fallen man let out was unearthly.

But for all it's familiar violence, even Montoya muttered an eloquent, "Shit…" before breaking into a run, "He did  _not_  have a weapon when first sight was made. He was just duking it out with the guy!"

A glance down told him her firearm was already out, "We thought it was another one-"

Gordon tensed his mouth into a thin line, " _That_  . He said pointedly, "is  _not_  a Robin."

Someone cursed behind him.

That transfer.

"Jesus! That's not the damned  _sidekick_ , is it?"

" _No._ " He didn't blame the officer for not knowing though. It wasn't like everyone had access like he did. Or the history for that matter. But he really did not want his people to start shooting at the kids Batman toted around. Shoot on sight was a Batman only activity. 

Still, it was definitely a kid here. Gordon fired a warning shot off into the air.

The boy didn't even freeze. He simply couched lower in his stance like he was making to spring away from any bullets and gave a sweeping kick to the bleeding man in front of him.

And then he disappeared.

It happened so fast Gordon didn't realize what had happened until the faint trace outline of blue caught on the light from the dim street lamp.

Nightwing.

The boy was on the ground, looking a bit stunned as Nightwing stood over him, the bloodied sword in hand and a blank expression on his face. The kid didn't move. Nightwing kept his gaze on the kid.\\.

Montoya and one of the new transfers ran out as soon as Nightwing motioned and started pressing down towels to what was left of the unconscious man's arm. Gordon heard sirens in the background already.

"Nightwing, what the hell-"

"I'll be in your office in a half hour." He whispered. Nightwing scooped the kid up with one arm and shot out a grappling hook with the other.

The transfer looked up angrily, "He can't just leave! That damn  _thing_  should be taken in!"

Gordon didn't argue with that, but the pair were already gone.

***

_We are only what those before us made us to be_

 

Nightwing was exactly three minutes late and looked agitated enough that Gordon's own anger abated into a more mild frustration. "You want to tell me what the hell that was about?"

Nightwing pressed his mouth into a thin line and glared at the wall behind Gordon. He noticed a series of scratches ran down the side of his face like he spent the evening tangling with a cat.

"No."

Gordon snorted, "Not good enough, kid. That -"

"I'm not sorry," Nightwing interrupted. "That's what I came to say." And then with an abruptness fitting for the outburst Nightwing strode for the window, not even slowing down when he exited. As if he wasn't several floors off the ground. 

Gordon stared after him for a few moments and then got back to work. Not much he could do with that.

**Two weeks later...**

Montoya pressed a single sheet of paper down on his desk, "He's back, boss. Batman's back."

And then Gordon knew exactly what Nightwing wasn't sorry for. 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a message after the ___.


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